Research group “Mobility Futures” (Mobil)

The mutual influence between technological innovations, visions or paradigms, demand patterns, and business models, also called “co-evolution”, is particularly evident in the mobility sector. Current mobility behavior has only been made possible by modern technology infrastructure systems. At the same time, mobility requirements, needs, and preferences are important drivers for the development of technical and organizational innovations in the transport sector.

Also in the mobility system, the rapidly advancing digitalization has more recently become a focus of scientific and political interest. This is associated with innovations that are considered to have great transformative potential, but whose implementation is in most cases only just beginning. These include the automation of vehicles and transport systems, but also the integration of transport modes, simplified access to information, use, and billing for public transport.

Against this background, the research group looks at the potential and challenges of (information) technology developments for changing established mobility patterns and spatial structures or enabling new concepts of future mobility. The aim is to identify development opportunities, assess impacts, and, based on this, highlight the need for action and scope for design. This requires considerable methodological research work, such as the integration of approaches from transformation research, innovation research, qualitative social research, and transport modeling as well as the use of these approaches for technology assessment.

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